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Real or fake? A new anti-money laundering technology which makes it easier to track the flow of illicit cash through UK-based banks and building society accounts was launched in December 2018Credit:
Dominic Lipinski/PA

With 3.7 billion bank notes worth £70 billion currently circulating in the UK alone it’s understandable that counterfeiting is big business with the crime syndicates who appear to be upping their game throughout the world.

The Bank of England suggested 430,000 UK notes were taken out of circulation in 2014 with a face value of £8.05 million. In the first six months of 2018 it suggests that 223,000 notes with a face value of £5 million were discovered, suggesting things have neither got any better or worse in the last few years.

Today organised criminals have however found new methods of reproducing high quality counterfeit banknotes very quickly using traditional offset lithographic printers...